The Other End of the Telescope
by Mark of the Asphodel
Summary: Leif swore to Nanna that he'd go on a mission to rescue Raquesis, and with the help of his new Agustrian in-laws, he does exactly that. Piecing a fractured family back together isn't the easiest thing in the world, but Raquesis feels she's earned her happy ending and is determined to have it. Set after FE4, natch.
1. The Summer Queen

**The Other End of The Telescope**

I do not own _Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters.

A post-war fanfic in which Leif fulfills his promise to find Raquesis... who is nowhere near the Yied Desert and very much alive.

Standalone sequel to the Azel-centric "While You Were Sleeping."

Contains Finn/Raquesis, Leif/Nanna, Ares/Leen, subkiddies and a bucketload of family issues.

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><p><em>Prologue: The Summer Queen<em>

_Agustria 779_

When Alva told her that the rebel army seized Agusty and was now marching westward toward Silvail, she refused to care. How many rebellions had there been in the eight miserable years she'd spent in her shabby birdcage? Too many. When young Tristan repeated the rumors that Prince Ares himself led the rebels, Raquesis felt a wild, thrilling hope stab at her heart... but only for a moment. There'd been one False Ares already, some golden-haired boy plucked from the woods south of Nordion. He'd ended up dead like his "father" Eldigan, his head struck off after his inevitable defeat.

Raquesis didn't let herself believe any more. She'd stay here in Silvail, in the "apartment" that was really a gussied-up dungeon. Alva and his nephew Tristan would guard her, and Tristan's sister Janne would come to her for sewing lessons three times a week, and so it would go until the end of her days. A puppet queen in her miniature court, too high-born to send to the prison camps and too dangerous to be made a martyr— and therefore left to rot in the shadows.

Only when Tristan came to her one autumn afternoon, his face flushed and damp with sweat and his voice cracking in panic, did Raquesis think this latest pack of rebels might actually be a cause for concern.

"My uncle's surrendered," Tristan gasped, and Raquesis lifted one corner of her mouth at Alva's survival skills. The last of her retainers knew when to fold. "He… he told me to guard you until my last breath."

Alva's pragmatism extended only to his own survival, apparently.

"Just surrender," Raquesis said to Tristan. "Surrender to whoever it is this time; you'll be no help to anyone if you die."

"But Your Majesty…"

"The rebels might be better masters to serve than the Empire. Who knows anymore?"

She took a seat beneath the small and dingy window that illuminated her sitting room and put her needle again to the piece of embroidery she'd been working on the past few weeks. It was a segment of a heraldic tapestry of lions, crowns, roses and swords that her captors would never allow her to display, but annoying them with her sewing was one of the few pleasures Raquesis had left to her. After a few more moments of listening to Tristan's panting breaths, she said without raising her eyes from the needlework, "Go, Tristan. If this Prince Ares can hold Silvail for more than a day he can use your loyalty and strength."

From the corner of her vision she saw the youth kneel, yelp out a "Yes, Your Majesty," and withdraw to the hallway— where, by the sound of things, he remained.

"Chivalry makes such fools of men," Raquesis said as she threaded her needle with crimson wool. She didn't care if Tristan heard.

Raquesis didn't even have time to finish a single rose before she heard boots in the hall. Still she kept at her work, even as Tristan sent up pleas to the intruders not to cause harm to Her Majesty, but sound of the voice that answered Tristan, a request that he stand aside, did catch her attention. That voice belonged to neither Grannvale nor Agustria. Mercenaries from Isaach?

Her hand shook, just a little, as she sent the needle into the cloth again, but she steadied herself as a pair of boots crossed the worn carpet toward her. The boots stopped a few paces away.

"If I am to be executed I request a swordsman to perform the deed and not a clumsy oaf of an axeman," she said, her eyes fixed on the red wool in her hands.

"So it really is you, Mother."

This bizarre statement and the way it was spoken made Raquesis lift her head at last to stare at the newcomer. He was a young man of about Tristan's age, not as tall or well-built as Tristan, but impressive all the same in his gleaming white armor. A shock of brown hair, large dark eyes, the unmistakeable sound of Northern Thracia in his voice...she'd fallen in love with its sound, once upon a time.

"Leif?"

"I've grown up a bit since Tahra," he said, and his beautifully-colored lips formed a smile that was all Leif in its mischief. Raquesis didn't smile back. She felt the embroidery hoop would splinter in her hands.

"Leif, how did you get here?"

"By way of Belhalla. Never mind that, Mother." And he dipped down on one knee then, so his head was within easy reach, as though he were a child again. She almost did stretch out her hand to touch his lush dark hair, but Raquesis remembered that she had been a queen for the space of one summer, and so she gave him her hand to kiss and not for a loving pat. Leif nuzzled the back of her hand with his still-smooth cheek just as he had when he was a little boy. This softened her, and the embroidery hoop rolled away as Raquesis got to her feet to properly embrace Leif.

"My comrade here would like to meet you," he said, and Raquesis looked past Leif to see this "comrade" from Isaach who'd told Tristan to stand down. Another boy of an age with Leif or Tristan, tall and slender, with a shock of wheat-colored hair. Isaach did produce a few young men with fair hair and long limbs, but something didn't quite fit...

And somehow, looking into his eyes, she knew.

"Delmud."

"Mother." Not the childish "Mama" of their last parting, but "Mother," just like Leif and yet so _un_like Leif.

They collided with one another like two drops of quicksilver flowing into one. His voice cracking, her throat closing on so many unspoken endearments, his tears hot and wet against her face and her own eyes blurred and stinging.

"My boy," she heard herself say. "My boys. You found me. My boys found me."

Even when she collected herself Raquesis couldn't bear to let either of them go, and so she stood between them, arm in arm with these lovely youths as she bade Tristan to get up off the floor to meet their liberators- the prince of Leonster and the prince of their own beautiful Nordion.

**To Be Continued**

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><p>AN: Yes, we will find out why she's in Silvail and what's up with the queen of Agustria business. As for Leif being so familiar with her, given he pretended she was his mother as a child and is now technically her son-in-law, as far as he's concerned he's legit family.


	2. Mother and Child Reunion

_Mother and Child Reunion_

They made a curious procession as the boys escorted Raquesis down corridors she hadn't seen in long years. Delmud walked with his arm still locked in her own while Tristan followed behind, but it was Leif who took the lead, constantly glancing back or even outright walking backwards a few steps while he did his best to convey the last eight years of their lives. Crucial details that might have wrenched at her heart were blurred by Leif's steady rain of chatter, but Raquesis decided it was likely for the best. Lord Sigurd's son was now the conquering hero enthroned at Belhalla, all the old villains were dead, and the Prince Ares whom Raquesis doubted was her own nephew beyond any doubt. Except now he was King Ares.

"His Majesty had to return to Agusty," said Delmud when he could get a word in. "He wants to see you there as soon as possible... if you can travel that is, Mother."

"I can travel," she said, sounding a little sharp, perhaps, but her world was a-spin.

And her daughter was married.

"Just wait until you see Nanna, Mother," said Leif, and that mischief showed again in his sparkling eyes.

He really was the most remarkable blend of his true parents- in one moment he looked the image of Cuan in his glory, all reckless élan, and in the next he was Ethlyn all over again with warmth and love radiating like sunshine. She almost wanted him to fall silent, to give her a few moments of peace so she might take stock of it all, but at the same moment she couldn't bring herself to _not_ let Leif prattle on in his way. There was something of the ten-year-old about him even yet... then again, he was only eighteen. Raquesis had come to appreciate how young that truly was.

At last they reached the chamber where Raquesis had received guests during her three-month reign. Raquesis felt a little leap in her heart on seeing Alva's grizzled auburn head. He stood flanked by two guards but was clearly not harmed and the expression on his face upon seeing her alive was transcendent.

"Delmud, please release this man. He has been my support through all of these trials." This couldn't relate the full scope of what Alva had managed before, during, and after their brief rebellion, but Raquesis could tell Delmud of all that in days to come. "Alva, where is Janne?"

"She is healing the wounded," Alva replied as he got to his feet; he'd nearly prostrated himself before her on his release. "They're converting the ballroom into an infirmary."

"Nanna's working there also, Mother." Leif tugged at her hand and fairly dragged her toward the ballroom before Raquesis could ask how many casualties there'd been and if anyone sympathetic to her had fallen.

The ballroom had looked worse, Raquesis thought. There'd been more bodies stacked there at Chagall's final defeat. Raquesis quickly spotted Janne, now engaged in treating a young man's bloodied leg, and she immediately began scanning the room looking for a little blonde girl- and then caught herself, because 'little girl' was entirely the wrong thing to seek. But the young woman of an age with Janne there in the sky-blue gown, the one with hair that was a lighter and brighter shade of yellow than Delmud's...

"Nanna!"

Almost as graceful as a dancer, Raquesis thought as her daughter slowly turned in her direction. Without a dancer's lightness, though— there was a sense of being grounded in her movements, but that might've been related to the obvious curve of Nanna's belly. Raquesis knew better than to have her first exchange of words with Nanna be about _that_; instead she took her daughter by the shoulders and gazed into Nanna's face. Clear blue eyes looked back at her with a measure of cold disbelief.

"You did end up taller than me. I thought that you'd be." She brushed a stray wisp of golden hair away from Nanna's cheek. "I'd hoped that you'd be."

"Oh, Mother." Nanna blinked once, then twice, and then the tears came spilling over.

"Shh, my baby girl." Raquesis feared for a moment that her daughter had, in her absence, been molded into an ice princess. But no, Nanna was as warm and yielding in her arms as Delmud, and Nanna's tears were just as free in spilling over. Her own eyes stinging from salt, Raquesis cleared her throat enough to whisper, "You still have my ear-rings."

"Father gave them to me when I turned fourteen," Nanna said as she brushed her fingers against one of the pale sapphire droplets. "I still carry the Runesword you left for me."

Pride was flowing through her like a stream of liquid-amber; Raquesis felt it might form a lump in her throat large enough to silence her for the night.

"And I delivered the letter," Nanna added.

"Letter?"

"The one you left me to give to Ares. It took me seven years, but I managed it."

The lump of congealed pride subsided just a little— not that she wasn't proud of Nanna for delivering that letter, as it was a wonderful thing, but the idea of Nanna cherishing her little mission for seven long years reminded Raquesis that her daughter was not, after all, solely herself in miniature.

Nanna sensed something amiss, as she then looked down with those keen blue eyes and asked, "Did they mistreat you, Mother?"

"Well, of course they—" Mid-sentence it occurred to Raquesis what Nanna was truly asking. "No, nothing like that. Threats, yes, but nothing…"

"We can go someplace private if you don't want to talk about it here."

"There's nothing," Raquesis repeated, and she definitely saw now what baby girl Nanna was: a married woman trained in the ways of the healing arts who had likely interviewed other women about _mistreatment_ at the hands of the empire.

At that moment, with the conversation on the edge of a great darkness, Raquesis saw one more familiar figure there in the ballroom, hovering at the edge of the drama. She let go of Nanna.

"Oh, Finn. You were here too? Leif didn't mention it."

The air in the ballroom had a charge to it then, the heavy feeling that came before the strike of high-level thunder magic. Her image of their reunion, should it ever come to pass, had changed its shape many times over their years, and in some way Raquesis was not surprised at all in how it now played out. Finn crossed the room in a few quick strides as though the floor weren't strewn with young men on pallets while Raquesis remained in place, her feet turned to roots. He, too, went down upon one knee in front of her, but this gesture was all grave deliberation despite the dramatic sweep of the white mantle over his shoulder; Finn showed none of Leif's affectionate play or Alva's near-desperate relief. She could feel no warmth from his hands, encased as they were in gloves, and precious little warmth in the dry touch of his lips against her own hand. Raquesis lowered her lashes halfway and made herself smile because she knew in that moment they made a perfect picture, fit for a storybook or a tapestry, the queen and her knight. She knew it, and she knew that he knew it.

Unlike in her fantasies, he did not ask to be forgiven— not now, not yet. Just as well, perhaps, since she wouldn't have to deny him, either by words or silence, in front of their witnesses.

**To Be Continued...**


End file.
